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Robot Wars: League
'' Robot Wars: League'' is the third series of TST Robot Wars, and is the fifth series planned after the cancellation of The Second Roblox Wars ''and ''The Third Roblox Wars. Development Throughout the two years that followed the initial cancellation of TST Robot Wars, several attempts were made by lower members of Channel TST to relaunch the series, albeit in a less ambitious and severely downsized manner. Until April 2014 none of these attempts, mainly based around holidays such as Easter to try and make organisation less stressful, were successful. Gathering a handful of interested roboteers, Connah of Team Intoxication proposed a small reboot of the series and plans were made for the new series, originally known as The Second-Ish Wars, mocking the inconceivably long hiatus between competitions. In May 2014, the series name was changed to Robot Wars: League due to a major format change. Throughout April and May, planning for the competition took place, with organisation primarily done by Bradley; after proposing the idea for the league format. The arena and house robots were built and hosted by Jon, editing was assigned to Charlie and filming for battles through May and June was done by Bradley, Jimmy, Connor and Chris. Changes to Format To avoid the complications that came with organising the large competitions of The First Roblox War, Extreme ''and ''The Second Roblox War; Robot Wars:League'' were drastically smaller in intentions, but other rules and elements were tweaked not only to make the competition simpler to run but also to give the competition its own uniquity. One major change behind the scenes was that, while robots had been confirmed a place in the first two series - unless their entry forms had flaws or the team broke rules on more than one occasion - in order to make ''Robot Wars: League ''easier to organise, only entries from teams who were reliable and easy to contact were accepted. Concerning entries themselves, the two major rule changes were an increase in the weight limit (from 260sgs to 300sgs) and a ban on entering automatic weapons such as spinning weapons and flippers; following issues with robots like Miniflippa and Spinosaur 6, robots were prevented from using automatic flippers and spinners and had to have some sort of control in place for their weapons, whether it be by tool, Gui or click button. Originally, it was intended for the series to heavily feature trials such as Football, Gauntlet and Pinball, perhaps as a means of seeding competitors for the arena competition, however this was scrapped, partially due to struggling to find enough reliable entries; and a league-based format was used instead. Pinball remained in place as a side competition, and /Sumo/ was re-introduced, while Football was scrapped entirely. For battles, a new arena had been assembled using aspects from all three original TST Robot Wars arenas, and a new camera mode was conceived to get closer angles of the action. This camera, found through 'kicking' Bradley and allowing him to fly bodiless around the arena while filming, was dubbed the 'Kick Cam'. House Robots would also be used for the first time, initially introduced to defend the score bumpers in Pinball. The League Format Each team would battle against each other team twice, with teams either winning, losing or drawing their battles. Unlike in The First War and Extreme, a draw would be possible, as judges decisions would not be used and instead, if a battle lasted the full 3 minutes, the battle will be drawn. When all battles are complete, the top 4 in the league table would go to the Finals, where a knockout system would be used. The teams placed in 1st and 2nd would battle against eachother in Playoff A, with the winner automatically going through to the Final and the loser going through to an Eliminator. The teams placed in 3rd and 4th would also battle against eachother in Playoff B, with the winner going through to the Eliminator against the loser of Playoff A, meanwhile the loser would be out of the competition, finishing 4th overall. The winner of the Eliminator would then go through to the final, with the loser out, finishing 3rd. The victor of the Final would win Robot Wars: League! League Table Each team would compete in 12 battles. For a win, a team would recieve 3 points, if a battle is drawn, both teams recieve 1 point and for a loss, a team gets 0 points. If two or more teams are tied on points at the end of the regular matches, their positions will be decided by the following criteria in order: #Head to Head Record #Number of Wins* #Result of a deciding battle (or battles if more than 2 teams) *Due to there being no draws in the series, this was impossible to be deciding criteria. Notes - Team Network finished 4th, and therefore advanced to Playoff B, ahead of Team Chaos due to a better head to head record. In both battles, Team Network were the victors. - There were no draws in the series, and therefore the 'Draws' column in the league table was removed. Finals Playoff A Team Channel TST vs Team Judgement Team Channel TST 'wins' Playoff B Intoxicated Nation vs Team Network Intoxicated Nation 'wins, 'Team Network' finishes 4th' Eliminator Team Judgement vs Intoxicated Nation Intoxicated Nation 'wins,' Team Judgement 'finishes 3rd' Final Team Channel TST vs Intoxicated Nation Intoxicated Nation 'wins, Team Channel TST'' finishes 2nd''''' '''Robot Wars: League Champion: '''Intoxicated Nation Special Events At the end of the series, a number of special events and battles would be done and featured in a one-off episode after the Final Episode. House Robot Rebellions, Replica Rumble, Wild Card Warriors, Tabletop Terror and Mayhem battles were all featured. Aftermath The first League had originally been intended to open the way to more, similar competitions and once again resurrect the TST Robot Wars series, allowing competitors to be seeded and the champion Intoxicated Nation to defend their title. During the special events, Team Channel TST retired from the competition - earlier than originally intended. In doing so, Jon also announced that he would no longer be involved in setting up and organising battles, but would remain around to maintain the arena and House Robots. Although plans were made concerning the Second League's setup and format, the competition soon became little more than a brief whisper of hope and quietly disappeared from the TST agenda. Although on 31st October 2014, Charlie began uploading the first episode, it was not uploaded at that time. As of April 2014, four episodes had been edited, but unless footage can be retrieved it seems that all footage and progress on the series has been lost. Trivia and Interesting Stuff *Of the seven teams in the league, all but one had taken part in the First War, as Team Judgement did not join TST Robot Wars until Extreme. Of these six, only Team Mario failed to reach their Heat final, and Team Channel TST and Team CHAOS were the only two teams to have reached the Grand Final in Arena. The remaining three First War veterans - Team Emeryville, Team Network and Intoxicated Nation - all won at least one title during either the First War or Extreme, including the First War Sumo, Extreme All-Stars, Extreme Antweight Annihilation and Extreme Flipper Frenzy. Category:Robot Wars Category:Channel TST Series Category:Roblox Category:2014